Why following blindly is very dangerous

Whenever we ask owners this question after hearing what they do to their dogs:

"Any reasons why?"

Many of them are not able to provide a proper answer, most would answer that they "Don't Know", while others would answer "Because xxx also did this so I just followed". When it comes to dogs, a lot of owners would just follow blindly because the majority does so, or their friends said so. I'm sure many of you are guilty of this, but if you truly love your dog then you should stop thinking this way immediately.

Dogs even though are strong and resilient in nature, can have their health/life destroyed by humans unknowingly, when it comes to food, medication and lifestyle, many have no idea what they are doing. In this article, we will share about the dangerous things we see owners following blindly, if you are one of them, don't worry because you still have a chance to learn, start changing your mindset now and you will thank us someday.

Food
There are a few types of dog food to us that are edible for dogs, Raw, HCF (Home Cooked Food), Dehydrated, Freeze dried and Kibbles (dry food). "So I can just pick any one among the options and my dog will be healthy?" No! Within these 5 categories opens up even more alternatives of preparation and ingredients that can be used to feed a dog.

Let's take an example, in RAW feeding we have different source of animals - Pork, Chicken, Beef, Lamb etc, within each source of meat there are different parts that has different benefits and possible side effects/taste when consumed - Fillet, Lungs, Stomach, Liver, Heart etc, even after knowing what is beneficial for your dog, you will still need to find a good source of the meat for your dog, which means that a reputable seller/source will determine the final quality of the meat, and after that comes a trial to see if your dog's body has any reaction to them. As easy as it may sound initially, you may find that having to decide on a suitable meal for your dog may not be an easy task after all.
As an example: While Raw feeding might be the closest food to a dog's natural diet (protein), it is also one of the most complicated food among the 5 choices, not due to the difficulty of learning how to feed (it is not simple either), but because many pet dogs cannot accept this diet in their body. As much as we wish to provide the most natural diet to our dogs, we need to know that the dogs we have at home and the one in the wild, including strays are different, their body, build and most importantly, immune system is different, true enough some pet dogs may be able to accept it after introduction to certain supplements/food that strengthens their digestive system, this does not mean that we will be able to change their immunity nor to change what their body has evolved to digest better, we can't have their body becoming immune to bacterias from raw meat just like that, using raw in this scenario is just one of the many possibilities you will need to consider when choosing the right food for your dog. Contrary to popular beliefs inspired by nonsense "natural diet" web articles, Kibbles does not equal to human biscuits in terms of diet comparison, we see a lot of nature obsessed owners using this as an excuse not to feed their dogs scientifically modified food, when they themselves are feeding their dogs self prepared food that serves no purpose other than filling up their stomach, just because their dogs are too spoilt with good tasting food meant for humans. As time goes they would be asking themselves why their dogs are constantly sick.

Supplements
A very popular term that is deemed a necessity for humans, and now passing on to dogs, supplements are known to "fill up" what your dog's body is lacking, just drink or swallow a few pills a day and it will be healthy, or not. We see owners finding supplements for their puppies before they even have any problems, this is becoming very concerning as pet stores and money minded businesses start to buy over the media, persuading gullible people to start feeding their puppies supplements so that they can grow stronger, even preventing deadly diseases they say. From fish oils, calcium tablets to even traditional alternatives like herbs, many are not familiar with the brands of supplements they are feeding, they do not read the ingredients, do not study about the pros and cons of the supplements, do not research the background of the manufacturer, they just feed their dogs blindly because someone said so. We do not wish to go too much into this area, you do not simply pop over the counter supplements into your healthy newborn baby's body without any good reasons, if your dog is young and healthy, there is absolutely no need to give any supplements! Doing so might actually cause more harm than good, if the supplements you get is not regulated properly, or you unknowingly overdose your dog because the pet store or online article said so, you will just be creating more problems for you as well as your dog in time to come, also understand this, there have been studies showing that a large percentage of supplements do not actually contain what their label suggests, so consider again.

Home remedies
We all agree that home remedies can be great help in times of need, for people who might not have the right tools at the right time, or others who simply cannot afford costly solutions, home remedies when used correctly can be cheap and really effective. That being said, one has to weigh between the pros and cons before trying something on their dogs, for example, small cases like scratching or random sneezing, go ahead, give the said remedy a try, don't expect too much from it and seek professional help if it doesn't work within a few days. The danger from using home remedies increases when owners apply it on complicated cases - eg. pus/scabs on skin, ticks and fleas, diseases, these mentioned cases although may seem harmless to try, can actually turn nasty within a matter of hours!

We'll just explain a few points from above so that you can have a better understanding on the consequences, pus/scabs probably means that your dog's skin is injured to the point where a wrong move can worsen its condition, it is very different from minor rashes, therefore professional advice should be your number 1 solution, not home remedies.

Ticks and fleas, it's totally harmless and funny to talk about, till one day you find a couple of ticks/fleas on your dog's body, then slowly figuring out that they are multiplying and not stopping, not only you risk your family getting irritated and bitten by these pests, your dog will also be suffering and risking tick fever for a long time to come, you will have to engage pest control, flea/tick bomb the whole house, then you learn that everything could've been prevented with proper scientific solutions. We understand that ticks/fleas preventive are not cheap, however it is not escapable if you wish to own a dog, unless you don't bring it outdoors forever, which is the same as torturing the poor animal, in this case proper preventive procedure is the way to go, definitely a no-no to funny tries like home mixture or tags(or even bells), for your information, pest control can cost up to a few thousand dollars for a total clearance of ticks/fleas, tick fevers can be fatal to your dog, visiting the vet is at least $100/trip excluding tests, humans can also be bitten by ticks/fleas if the pests are too hungry, therefore a $15/month ticks/fleas prevention is a much cheaper option, every dog has different reaction to preventives, medicine and even food, it is your responsibility to try and find the right one for it, not escape from everything.

Once again, the above mentioned scenarios are just a few of the many things that owners fail to understand, you will need to study up and learn to differentiate between 3 things: Casual advice, Professional advice and Advertisements, most can understand between casual and professional advice, but many do not know how to figure out when companies/individuals are ADVERTISING for their personal benefit

Medical advices
Similarly to above, small and harmless things, go ahead and do a small experiment, for more serious cases, consult a professional. Do not go around forums and online platform hoping that you will get a miracle advice, chances are there will be zero vets replying you, you will probably just be waiting to hear the things you WANT to hear, and this is just plain wrong! It is great to share experience on which vet/clinic is good, but to follow medical advice? How about a YouTube video to teach you how to sterilize a dog, so that you can do it yourself at home? This may sound sarcastic, but only through obvious scenarios we can then enlighten some people that what they are doing is risky, if you do not watch video and remove a dog's reproductive glands yourself, then you wouldn't feed your dog products recommended by the media to cure it either, you will first research thoroughly, bring the product to your trusted vet for advices, good vets will know if a product is safe for consumption, he/she will not discriminate you if the product doesn't work as long as it isn't harmful. The only time you might want to try such things is when all alternatives fail, you visited countless vets but it didn't work, years gone by and problem doesn't get better, then you can consider doing a small and controlled experiment.

Dog training
All pets need to be trained in one way or another to maximize relationship with owners, you might not notice this, but a simple gesture of carrying a seemingly untrainable hamster can be considered a form of training - you are training it to get used to the feel of your hands, which may help it to get accustomed to human handling. At least 50% of dog owners have engaged in some form of dog training lessons, and a large percentage of them fail even after countless sessions, putting aside the reason of choosing a wrong trainer, many have problems not with their dogs, but themselves, they do not follow lessons and do not put effort to learn, many like to mix training methods like our famous Singapore delicacy - Rojak, they mix everything they learn from lessons, televisions and online media, thus confusing their dogs completely. Shockingly enough, some of these people even resort to guiding other inexperienced owners on dog training, passing on baseless knowledge and creating what we call "Dog Myths", if you truly love your dog, stop doing this, it isn't fair to your dog and everyone around you, stop spreading information that you are not capable of being responsible for, start learning through the proper way, do not rush as there is no fast route to success.

Conclusion
We are seeing more and more websites popping out, claiming all they wish to do is to get dogs well, whether it is food, prevention or even medical advices, what most of these websites are really aiming at would be consumers like you, they want to change your mindset, how you think and believe, all for the benefit of themselves, which is money. Simple websites linking to natural preventions are some of the most clever way to advertise, they claim to be aiming at natural way of living, using baseless "experimentations", these articles bash everything that they find competitive, this alone changes the way consumers like you and I purchased things, we may start to look at things ranging from organic food, therapy oils, massage classes to even miracle healing, our buying power increases as we read more, we start to target a smaller range of products (which is what they want), they do this in a subtle and effective way, in the end if it doesn't work you will have no one but yourself to blame. Dog owners themselves are good advertisers too, some who's dog react well on a certain solution would start to advice others to do the same thing, though results are largely varied, others get commission/benefit for referring.

A large number of dog owners, no matter how many years of dog ownership they have, do not have enough hands on experience nor knowledge as a whole, they think that having 10 dogs and 40 years of dog ownership means experience, honestly it's not so simple, if you have 10 children that doesn't make you a doctor, it cannot make you a teacher either, to master a skill set one would need to be exceptionally well versed in a particular topic, and practice that particular skill set for many years to come, how good that person will be in that area will also depend on personalities and talent. We see owners advising others on dog nutrition when their dogs are constantly sick and going to the vet for no good reasons, chicken wings, barley, durians? We see owners advising others on dog behavior when their own dogs are turning aggressive on each other, we see owners advising others to mate their dogs to produce "cute puppies", even seeing owners advising others on natural ticks/fleas preventive when they themselves don't even know how a male/female tick looks like! Funny enough, these are the people that receives the most attention because they know where to look for it, they stick close to new and innocent owners, hoping to get others into the same boat as them, soon enough we see many young dogs having diarrhea, aggression and diseases, owners will then start to question themselves on what they have done wrong.

We always stand on a neutral point when it comes to dogs, we accept and study all different opinions before coming to a conclusion, we change and improve our knowledge based on proper and scientific advances, this in return gives our dog and the ones we are in charge of the healthiest and and most beneficial life they can have. Amber will be 4 this year, she never had the need to go to the vet except for spaying when she was 6 months old, and also for yearly vaccination, meaning to say that she had never been sick, no skin problems, no infection, no flu/cough/fever, nothing. Many people are are very surprised when they hear that Amber only visit the vet once a year for vaccination, of course as years go, Amber's body will grow weaker and problems may start to surface due to age, however what we learn from this is that young dogs should always be healthy and not visiting the vet every now and then, if you find your dog being sick more often than not, it's probably something that is caused by human treatment, whether it's your lifestyle or the previous owner that might've spoilt its health, you need to change today, maintain a good lifestyle and you will not have the need to visit the vet as often, this means that you will be able to save up more money to give your dog a happier life instead!

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